PROCLAMATION OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY

April 25, 1949

The Kuomintang reactionaries have rejected the terms for peace and persist
in their stand of waging a criminal war against the nation and the people.
The people all over the country hope that the People's Liberation Army will
speedily wipe out the Kuomintang reactionaries. We have ordered the People's
Liberation Army to advance courageously, wipe out all reactionary Kuomintang
troops who dare to resist, arrest all the incorrigible war criminals, liberate
the people of the whole country, safeguard China's territorial integrity,
sovereignty and independence, and bring about the genuine unification of
the country, which the whole people long for. We earnestly hope that people
in all walks of life will assist the People's Liberation Army wherever it
goes. We hereby proclaim the following eight-point covenant by which we,
together with the whole people, shall abide.

1. Protect the lives and property of all the people. People in all walks
of life, irrespective of class, belief or occupation, are expected to maintain
order and adopt a co-operative attitude towards the People's Liberation Army.
The People's Liberation Army on its part will adopt a co-operative attitude
towards people in all walks of life. Counter-revolutionaries or other saboteurs
who seize the opportunity to create disturbances, loot or sabotage shall
be severely dealt with.

2. Protect the industrial, commercial, agricultural and livestock enterprises
of the national bourgeoisie. All privately owned factories, shops, banks,
warehouses, vessels, wharves, farms, livestock farms and other enterprises
will without exception be protected against any encroachment. It is hoped
that workers and employees in all occupations will maintain production as
usual and that all shops will remain open as usual.

3. Confiscate bureaucrat-capital. All factories, shops, banks and warehouses,
all vessels, wharves and railways, all postal, telegraph, electric light,
telephone and water supply services, and all farms, livestock farms and other
enterprises operated by the reactionary Kuomintang government and the big
bureaucrats shall be taken over by the People's Government. In such enterprises
the private shares held by national capitalists engaged in industry, commerce,
agriculture or livestock raising shall be recognized, after their ownership
is verified. All personnel working in bureaucrat-capitalist enterprises must
remain at their posts pending the take-over by the People's Government and
must assume responsibility for the safekeeping of all assets, machinery,
charts, account books, records, etc., in preparation for the check-up and
take-over. Those who render useful service in this connection will be rewarded;
those who obstruct or sabotage will be punished. Those desiring to go on
working after the take-over by the People's Government will be given employment
commensurate with their abilities so that they will not become destitute
and homeless.

4. Protect all public and private schools, hospitals, cultural and educational
institutions, athletic fields and other public welfare establishments. It
is hoped that all personnel in these institutions will remain at their posts;
the People's Liberation Army will protect them from molestation.

5. Except for the incorrigible war criminals and counter-revolutionaries
who have committed the most heinous crimes, the People's Liberation Army
and the People's Government will not hold captive, arrest or subject to indignity
any officials, whether high or low, in the Kuomintang's central, provincial,
municipal and county governments, deputies to the "National Assembly", members
of the Legislative and Control Yuans, members of the political consultative
councils, police officers and district, township, village and
pao-chia[1] officials, so long as they
do not offer armed resistance or plot sabotage. All these persons are enjoined,
pending the take-over, to stay at their posts, abide by the orders and decrees
of the People's Liberation Army and the People's Government and assume
responsibility for the safekeeping of all the assets and records of their
offices. The People's Government will permit the employment of those among
them who can make themselves useful in some kind of work and have not committed
any grave reactionary act or other flagrant misdeed. Punishment shall be
meted out to those who seize the opportunity to engage in sabotage, theft
or embezzlement, or abscond with public funds, assets or records, or refuse
to give an accounting.

6. In order to ensure peace and security in both cities and rural areas and
to maintain public order, all stragglers and disbanded soldiers are required
to report and surrender to the People's Liberation Army or the People's
Government in their localities. No action will be taken against those who
voluntarily do so and hand over their arms. Those who refuse to report or
who conceal their arms shall be arrested and investigated. Persons who shelter
stragglers and disbanded soldiers and do not report them to the authorities
shall be duly punished.

7. The feudal system of landownership in the rural areas is irrational and
should be abolished. To abolish it, however, preparations must be made and
the necessary steps taken. Generally speaking, the reduction of rent and
interest should come first and land distribution later; only after the People's
Liberation Army has arrived at a place and worked there for a considerable
time will it be possible to speak of solving the land problem in earnest.
The peasant masses should organize themselves and help the People's Liberation
Army to carry out the various initial reforms. They should also work hard
at their farming so as to prevent the present level of agricultural production
from falling and should then raise it step by step to improve their own
livelihood and supply the people of the cities with commodity grain. Urban
land and buildings cannot be dealt with in the same way as the problem of
rural land.

8. Protect the lives and propertyof foreign nationals. It is hoped
that all foreign nationals will follow their usual pursuits and observe order.
All foreign nationals must abide by the orders and decrees of the People's
Liberation Army and the People's Government and must not engage in espionage,
act against the cause of China's national independence and the people's
liberation, or harbour Chinese war criminals, counter-revolutionaries or
other law-breakers. Otherwise, they shall be dealt with according to law
by the People's Liberation Army and the People's Government.

The People's Liberation Army is highly disciplined; it is fair in buying
and selling and is not allowed to take even a needle or a piece of thread
from the people. It is hoped that the people throughout the country will
live and work in peace and will not give credence to rumours or raise false
alarms. This proclamation is hereby issued in all sincerity and earnestness.

Mao Tse-tung
Chairman of the Chinese People's Revolutionary Military Commission

Chu Teh
Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese People's Liberation Army

NOTES

1.Pao chia wasthe administrative system
by which the Kuomintang reactionary clique enforced its fascist rule at the
primary level. On August 1, 1932, Chiang Kai-shek promulgated the "Regulations
for the Organization of Pao and Chia and for a Population
Census in the Counties" covering the provinces of Honan, Hupeh and Anhwei.
The "Regulations" provided that "the pao and chia are to
be organized on the basis of households; there is to be a head of each household,
of each chia, which is made up of ten households, and of each pao,
which is made up of ten chia". Neighbours were required to
watch and report each other's activities to the authorities, and all were
punishable when one was found guilty; various counter-revolutionary measures
for exacting compulsory labour were also laid down. On November 7, 1934,
the Kuomintang government officially announced that this system of fascist
rule was to be established in all the provinces and municipalities under
its rule.